Garbage piles up on Birmingham’s streets after weeks of sanitation strike in the UK city

There is a stink rising over the United Kingdom's second-largest city. Garbage has piled up for a month in Birmingham during a dispute between the city and its trash collectors. It is a sore sight for the eyes and offensive to the nose. Mountains of garbage are said to be visible from space, and people have complained of seeing rats as big as cats in the refuse. “You can see the juice flowing out of the bags onto the road. It stinks,” Naeem Yousef said. “It’s bringing down the areas. People are saying, ‘Look at these areas, how dirty these people are.'” Members of Unite, the union representing garbage truck workers, walked off the job on March 11 over the elimination of a job position and painful pay cuts. The council said it had made a reasonable offer, that cuts would only affect a small number of jobs, and the jobs being eliminated were unnecessary. The Labour-run Birmingham City Council is effectively bankrupt because of a settlement over historic pay discrimination. As a result, it’s had to make significant budget cuts of 300 million pounds ($383 million) over two years and is only providing services required by law, including waste collection. As heaps of black bags littered sidewalks, with their contents spilling out of holes chewed by critters, the city council declared a major incident to bring in additional cleanup crews and vehicles. Photos on news sites and social media show furniture, mattresses and car bumpers illegally dumped alongside bulging trash bags. In one neighborhood, garbage sacks were set ablaze. “Our priority is tackling the misery and disruption for residents,” Angela Rayner, Deputy Prime Minister, said. “It is essential to protect public health by tackling the backlog of waste.” Kevin Hollinrake, a Conservative Member of Parliament, said the situation was “a national embarrassment” and could become a public health emergency. This article was provided by The Associated Press.